Been on the tumbleweed release a while now. Last night I borked things up pretty good playing with things I didn’t fully understand so I’m just going to reinstall. I’d like to stick with the stable release, should I wait for the next stable version which looks like it could be soon or stick with leap for now? Will there be an easy upgrade when it is released?
I see that leap release will need an updated kernel to write to raid 5, I already have a raid 5 in use, will the data be safe if I reinstall? I also have a mirror set, will that be safe? I don’t like to assume things but I’m fairly sure it’s just a pool that will have to be imported.
Lastly, I bought a license not long ago which seems to be tied to a unique id, is this a number derived from my hardware or is it random on install? Will I need to email support to get my license tied to a different appliance number?
You can manage your appliance ID (if it changes during a reinstall or transfer to a different hardware) via the https://appman.rockstor.com/ application. A bit more detail can be found here in the documentation (which will undergo some update since the OpenCollective path for subscriptions has now been introduced): Software update — Rockstor documentation
I will let @phillxnet correct my understanding w.r.t the next stable release and the reinstall questions you have.
you are correct, the next stable release is on the horizon, but no explicit landing date has been agreed upon
My understanding is that for the stable release, a Tumbleweed flavor will be available, but focus will be on Leap (as Tumbleweed does bring a couple of challenges with it), though in recent weeks there have been a few developments updated to accommodate these differences
if you stick with Leap, you can always use the backported kernel option that has been described here: Installing the Stable Kernel Backport — Rockstor documentation
That should then allow you to import your pools without a problem. You would want to perform the reinstall and set up the kernel backport before attempting to import your pool(s) and restore any configuration
I would be remiss if I did not mention that good data backups are of course always recommended before major surgery, as well as taking a backup of the Rockstor configuration to make a functional restore easier.
I do have a backup, but it was made after I made some other changes last week that broke rockons. In trying to fix that I broke it more, lol. So I’m just going to lick my wounds and go to the stable release.
@jihiggs fair enough. I hope/assume, that your changes did not destroy your data or make it inconsistent, but only affected your actual Rockstor appliance installation …
when you go with stable release, definitely install the backport kernel so you can use your RAID 5 setup.
To keep track of the comment I made above on the Software update documentation I have created an issue on Github for this (not that it will help @jihiggs with their problem, but still):
I just read that leap is end of support? Meaning it will no longer get os security updates? I’m an msp, I can’t have unpatched os on my network, so that’s a non starter for me.
Leap 15.3 is EOL, but Leap 15.4 is not. And of course there are Tumbleweed installers available. along side both of those leap versions on our Downloads page.
We are continuing to issue Leap 15.3 rpms just in case folks are still there and need to get our latest version. But Leap 15.4 and Tumbleweed are our current focus. As @Hooverdan stated there are some known issues on the Tumbleweed front but really the only one we have issued thus far is:
which is actually my current issue and I have a working but yet to be completed pull request to address that regression in our working on TW in comparison to the Leaps.
Also, given our installers currently contain Release Candidate 8 (4.5.8-0 and testing channel already has a 4.5.9-1 (RC9) you may just want to go with that offering as it is very close to our next stable release. The following are the outstanding issues to date prior to us calling it a day on this last year of the testing channel and spinning off a new master branch that will continue to be the next Stable channel releases until we ultimately reach a nice point with our next testing branch/channel.
And again, the older Leap version of Leap 15.3 on the installer download is just to help folks who may still have some incompatibility with Leap 15.4 which is currently supported and not EOL.
Also note that Leap bases can transition - in situ - to Tumbleweed. But although that is not a well tested transition but has been done. Our rockstor package update system will modify it’s repo to point to whatever base OS is being used.